Council approves Daley Court contract.

The East Hartford Town Council met at a special meeting on Thursday evening to review and approve the previously posted contract for the Daley Court property. The contract gives New Samaritan 2 years to secure their funding and get to work. It seems this project is not quite so urgent after all.

The meeting, video below, went as expected with a couple notable bits. First, despite the Republicans voting unanimously against this deal back in June all three voted in favor of the deal at this special meeting.

The next interesting bit pertains to our town legal counsel Richard Gentile. I am becoming increasingly concerned with the opinions that are coming from him. Mr. Gentile changed his position on 8-137 to agree with my interpretation of the law, which is that the Redevelopment Agency may not sell a piece of property for less than its use value, even if the Council approves it. Mr. Gentile then went on to give a wholly unqualified opinion of the current use value of the property to justify the sale price to New Samaritan. All the Redevelopment Agency needs to do to comply with the law is get a qualified opinion of the current use value from a licensed commercial appraiser. If it’s 50K or below, great. If not, get what the taxpayers deserve for the property. We must start following the law here in East Hartford.

The issue of the Burnside Redevelopment plan’s status came up as well.  Mr. Gentile goes on to claim that the Council must only review the plan and by approving past actions in the Redevelopment zone that satisfied the statute. Mr. Kehoe, to his credit, did not waffle on the issue and grabbed a copy of the Connecticut General Statutes which are conveniently in the Council Majority Chamber. A quick perusal of the relevant statutes verified that the Council is in fact required to re-approve or amend the plan at least every 10 years in order for the plan to remain in effect. The East Hartford Redevelopment plan, having not been re-approved or amended since 1997, is no longer in effect which puts us at risk as tax payers.

I have recommended that this situation be corrected immediately. With no plan in effect the Redevelopment Agency does not have the statutory authority to take the actions they have and they may not have the authority to enforce existing redevelopment deals.

Unfortunately, even after agreeing that the plan was expired the council voted to authorize the contract under the Burnside Plan. Insanity.

We need four things to happen here and quickly.

1st: The Redevelopment Agency needs to approve a replacement redevelopment plan for the Burnside Corridor and send it to the Council for approval.

2nd: The Redevelopment agency needs to secure an appraisal of the use value of 590 Burnside Avenue. Currently the Redevelopment Agency has absolutely no data to establish a use value on Daley Court and therefore cannot comply with the statutory requirement to sell for a minimum of the use value.

3rd: The Redevelopment Agency & Council need to re-approve this deal under the authority of the NEW development plan to ensure it is enforceable. Although I disagree with this particular development plan it is their prerogative to select it if they choose.

4th: Our town legal counsel must start being straightforward and strict with interpretations of the law. It might give the Mayor or someone else credibility to say the legal counsel said a particular action was ok, but that isn’t going to help should  we end up in court.

Thanks to Eric Thompson for asking questions. Glad you are back in there.